It has to be fruitful
Your promise is well tried,
And your servant loves it all. Psalm 119:140
Read Luke 8:4—10
I am one or other of these four kinds of soil. I really cannot see any other option I am given. If I’m not the fourth kind, the good soil, absorbing the word of the Lord like deep-rooted seed, flourishing, reproducing, giving it out again a hundredfold — if I’m not that, I’m not anything. I know that! It’s the only way I can read it. The only way to take Jesus. But I have, in one lifetime, managed to be each of the first three kinds of soil as well. If I take a moment I will remember when I have blocked out God’s voice, not wanting to hear at all; when my enthusiasm has died, shone bright, then died; when the cares and preoccupations of my life, so pressing in themselves, have choked out the voice of God. Yet his word comes to me now, the voice of Jesus. This word is inexhaustible. Every day I listen he will speak to me afresh. ‘As for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.’
Dear Lord, your word has fallen like seed upon me. You have spoken to me. In you all the promises of God are ‘Yes.’ Your word is ultimately affirming. It is Good News way beyond myself. And it, your word, I see is not to be wasted. It is to be attended to. In hearing you I meet you. I learn how much I am loved. Over time you reveal your purpose for me. I am sure that your word is also for others I know already and for those you will lead me to know in the future. So it has to be fruitful. It has to lead us to discoveries about each other and to conversations about you. In your word I meet you and grow in you. I meet others and grow in relationship with them. I meet myself, and grow and grow and grow. May my rest tonight prepare me for fruitfulness tomorrow.